Our journey continues... Over the last few days we have been visiting our main school site, the Engineering Study Program (ESP), in the Mae La refugee camp. Mae La is home to ~45,000 Burmese refugees, largely Karen, and is quite the site to behold. Arriving at the camp the initial effect is a bit confounding; the natural beauty of the camp (an enormous expanse of houses with leaf roofs snuggled next to Avatar-esque cliffs and jungle rising far above the camp itself) sitting in dissonance with the bleakness of situation for the displaced people confined within the barbed-wire fences.
After a winding trip through the labyrinth of the camp and up a muddy hill we arrived at ESP. The first thing we were told to do was climb up a wooden latter into a thatched wall office and rest. I assume the sweat drenching our bodies was an indicator of exhaustion to our hosts, although for us this has pretty much become a persistant state of being. Next, we were asked if we would like to meet the class. Approaching the classroom of ~70 students the first thing we noticed was students bustling about to move four chairs to the raised cement platform in front of the class.... Speech. Before we knew it we were placed in front of 140 eager eyes all waiting for us to say something. Slightly confused we asked the school director what she would like us to say. "Introduce, explain, teach and motivate them for their education," she replied calmly. And so it began. Before long the ice was broken, and the smiling, enthusiastic class was asking us varied questions about the United States, refugees, and the most common diseases of the USA.
This baptism-by-fire attitude has been a theme over the past two days as we quickly realized that we are not only expected to build a library but help mold their curriculum and teach the students. Today we started teaching English to our respective classes (Des with the 3rd year older students, Chris with the middle, and Ruth/I with the youngsters) and had a blast doing so. Granted our approach is a little freeform, covering some material from their textbook mixed with a bit of anything and everything. So far we have been asked the ins and outs of the word rascal, explained easy listening music, the subtleties of 'you're welcome' vs. 'my pleasure' and I'm pretty certain Chris is trying to turn his class into a rock band with himself placed as the enigmatic frontman. Given the fact that all the kids are obsessed with Linkin Park we are all waiting with baited breath to hear the first concert.
During the afternoon we began to work on the library we will install for the school, collaborating with the teachers to ensure that it is useable for the students and appropriate for integration into their current curriculum. It is difficult to take photos and video in the camp but we are working on gathering some shots we will share here.
In the meantime we leave you with a song from the children at 'The Chicken School', a migrant school in the Mae Sot area (outside of the refugee camps) we will support with textbooks and supplies. We have been told the origin of the strange and mysterious namesake of the school is two-fold: (1) the school serves to educate and care for young children (nursery to 12 year olds) or 'Chicks' as they say here & (2) perhaps more devious-- the legend tells of a few chickens meant to go elsewhere that were left on the premise for a few hours one day only to disappear within a hour or so (maybe into a black hole, but more realistically into the mouths and bellies of these sweet children who will now offer you this song).
So without further adieu:
